


FRAMED

by Sara_Nublas



Series: The Swan series [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-05-25
Updated: 2011-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:49:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sara_Nublas/pseuds/Sara_Nublas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel of the Swan. Rose is back with a plan to unravel Emily's sanity and identity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where we are

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to The Swan, so I suggest you to read the Series in order for a better understanding of the plot.  
> Feedback and comments are much appreciated!

Derek reached Garcia, Reid and Emily sitting at a table in a fast food in a remote town in Kansas. It wasn’t a busy night, few clients were dining and the waitresses were chatting and laughing in a relaxed and slightly tired atmosphere.  
A waitress named Wendy refilled the coffee in the cups of the BAU agents and brought a new one for Derek. They were all drained by the case they just closed, it had been a rush against time but they succeeded in catching the unsub before he killed another couple so this was one of the good days, but that awareness didn’t erase the effect of almost four days of constant work. They always started the investigation with the purpose of taking turns sleeping but actually none of them would accept the idea of laying down while a killer was out loose hands and they would all end up dragging themselves around as a revival of “the night of the living dead”.  
Garcia was teasing Reid for his purple scarf wrapped around his neck in pure Oscar Wilde style and he had answered in the usual geeky way, leaving Garcia and Morgan exchanging amused glances. Emily instead was staring at void.  
“Hei, sleeping beauty..” Garcia mocked her waving a hand in front of her eyes.  
Emily shook back from her trance “Ah, sorry… You were saying?”  
“What were you staring at?” Morgan questioned.  
“Those two” Emily hinted bowing her head toward a couple sitting at a table and sharing a slice of chocolate cake.  
“Mhh, dirty thoughts about chocolate?” Garcia suggested with a malicious grin.  
“No” Emily chuckled “They are dating… And I was thinking of the last time I went on a date…and I actually cannot recall it..”  
Morgan frowned along with Garcia who exchanged with him a look filled with curiosity. Even though neither Morgan nor Prentiss were big in sharing she intended that they had been seeing each other for a while and on a pretty exclusive basis. Suddenly she fired him with a deadly look at the thought he had been cheating on her, just to find a baffled and frankly surprised expression on his face.  
Reid interrupted this battle of glances to enlighten all of them on the topic “Generally dating is considered a form of courtship consisting of social activities done by two persons in the attempt to assess each other’s suitability as a partner in an intimate relationship or as a spouse…”  
“Assessment of suitability… How romantic Dr Reid!” Garcia commented sarcastic.  
Reid went on “In animal behavior we can observe a range spanning from species in which members of one sex compete fiercely to gain reproductive privileges with the highest number of partners possible, being this an indicator of good fitness, to species in which pair bond arrangements are meant for a lifetime.” He took a little pause looking at his audience and temporary freezing his hands otherwise frantically moving at the rhythm of his words “According to some anthropologists in this spectrum humans are somewhat in the middle, they form pair bonding but there is the possibility of cheating or changing partners”  
At this last hint Garcia vigorously kicked Derek’s knees, causing him to startle from his seat.  
“Thanks for the fine anthropology lesson, I will call you WikiRead from now on” Emily joked, then caught a more and more confused look from Morgan and felt to explain her train of thought “When I was a kid we moved around a lot.. you get to that age when blending in is the basic survival need, so I had adopted this technique, I would watch people in the streets and take in their behavioral patterns, how they dressed, what they ate, how did they interact. To me their lives so stable and settled were all amazing, almost a mirage. Even though many of them envied all my journeys, back in time my dream was to have a conventional, boring life, in a conventional boring family. Now, watching that couple made me think of how far from conventional our life is, so that the idea of going out on a date is almost completely alien to me…” she smiled shaking her head.  
“Oh such a cutie, a teenage profiler…” Garcia joked at the idea of a young Emily taking in behavioral patterns “Well, though I have to say that considering your high school gothic style you must have looked for behavioral patterns in really messed up places”  
They all giggled, all except Morgan still uncertain on how to take her words.  
“Okay, time for me to go.” Emily concluded getting up form her seat “I still have to pack my bag before we leave, see you later guys”  
Derek ran after her in the street “Hey, wait a second” he looked nervous “Is there anything I need to know? Like an agreement on seeing other people or on taking a break I wasn’t aware of?”  
“Derek, are you suggesting we should break up?”  
“I don’t know, are you? Because that speech on dating to me was kind of a cold shower, and frankly I thought that after what we’ve been through in the past months we were finally doing fine, but apparently I missed something”  
Emily stared at him surprised in seeing Derek Morgan displaying uncertainty, then connected the dots, and sighed realizing how her comments could have been interpreted “Derek, I am not even thinking about seeing other people and I don’t want to break up. This doesn’t have anything to do with us, but… sometimes I just miss normal ordinary things that with our schedule are almost banished…”  
Derek relieved a little bit, but not completely, he was about to add something but he left it halfway when he saw Reid and Garcia catching up. Not that their growing intimacy was a secret among the team, but they all had silently agreed in not crossing openly the fraternization rules while at work.  
The subject wasn’t brought up again until later when they finally got back to Quantico and he gave her a lift home. In entering her apartment she tiredly dropped the bag on the floor and let herself sink onto the sofa. Derek reached her and sat close, unsure on how to approach the subject “So, where do you want to go?”  
She gave him a questioning glare.  
“For our date. Where do you want to go? Restaurant, cinema, theatre, you let me surprise you…”  
She reversed her head and laughed lightly, failing to repress a yawn “You mean when we are not working on a case or coming back from a case too exhausted to even make it to the bedroom?” she smiled leaning on his shoulder.  
“That’s exactly what I mean, it’s almost six month now and how many times did we go out on a real date?”  
Emily got serious and straighten herself up in order to look him in the eyes “Derek” she took his hand in hers and bit her lip trying to find the right words “We know exactly the kind of life we do and we understand perfectly what this implies, long working hours, almost no time for private life and a lot of sense of humor when we decide to plan ahead something. So far we haven’t had any problems with the fact that our being together doesn’t stick to canon, not until I made that stupid comment about dating and you got nervous.”  
He opened his mouth to reply but she stopped him with a gesture.  
“I guess what I am trying to say is that I am sorry if I made you feel inadequate or gave you the impression that I am not satisfied with our relationship, because honestly I feel real bad for that and you are being wonderful and patient and I am so messed up and..”  
“Don’t even try to go there, Emily” this time it was his turn to shush her with a kiss “Come on now” he took her hand and got up guiding her to the bedroom.

Emily had had troubles sleeping over the last six months; being abducted by a couple of serial killers who almost turned her into schnitzel and knowing that one of them was still out there loose hands potentially targeting her, had proved to be a tough experience to leave behind. Many nights she would wake up sweat through, panting in the darkness, the absurd feeling that Rose was there in that room watching her. She knew she would come back one day, but she made a promise to herself not to let this thought overpower her and her life. Besides she had worked so hard to convince Hotch and Strauss and her mother and everybody else that she was fine that now the last thing she wanted was to bring the subject up again. She had also managed to keep it from Derek, because when he was spending the night with her she would sleep like a baby, his embrace apparently working as a shield against bad dreams, so she had decided not to worry him for the moment. During those months his support had been so precious in such a number of ways and now she didn’t want to mess things up as her usual, besides she was more and more confident that she could handle the situation by herself.  
She couldn’t have been more wrong.


	2. You're a bad, bad girl

The young man was toying nervously with a bunch of keys, making an effort to seem at ease in front of those seducing, magnetic blue eyes. The woman dropped one of the blond locks she was playing with and leaned towards him with an open smile "You wanna know a secret, Luke?"

He nodded swallowing hard.

"When I was a child my dream was to have a job like yours."

"A doorkeeper… really?" he inquired confused, distracted by those beautiful eyes which wouldn't stop bewitching him.

"A concierge" she pointed out the more appropriate term, like if it would completely change the whole deal. The guy nodded hypnotized by the sound of her voice, his lips silently mimicking that word, concierge.

"You know," she went on "everybody gives this job for granted, but the truth is that it requires a lot of responsibility and discretion. You basically hold the life of all these people in your hands. Their timetables, their habits, their dirty little secrets, their mail. I imagine you could write a book with all the things you know …"

"I.. actually… I could never do that. I mean, yes I see things but I am really professional and I would never give away personal information about the people I work for, just like this" he blubbered shyly.

"Of course Luke. I have known since the beginning you are a serious, decent man. Your girlfriend is so lucky to have you" she went on picking her locks.

"Actually, I.. I don't have a girlfriend" he pointed out, looking away and blushing a bit.

"Oh, that's a shame! But I guess it's all my gain" she giggled pretending to be embarrassed.

Luke wasn't used being noticed. As doorkeeper of the building he had been working in since five years he had developed the awareness that people didn't want to care about the doorkeeper as long as he had a respectable face enough to presume he wouldn't read their mails or rob their houses. He had learnt to be kind and invisible, to observe the people walking through the door and understanding how to approach them, to memorize their faces – at this especially he was unpaired- and to recognize immediately if they lived in the building or if they were strangers, in that case the procedure was to stop them and ask where they were heading in order to verify they were not undesired persons. This was the way he met Lily.

Usually girls like her would just smile and then forget about him, but she didn't. Day by day she would pass by, say hi and stay to talk a little bit longer, until their kind acquaintance moved to a friendly relationship and slowly to a flirtatious one.

Lily was a nurse, she took care of Ms. Ella Bauermann an old widow living at the 11th floor, apartment number 4. She was alone, no children, no relatives, nobody to take care of her, after being diagnosed with a serious form of arthritis and refusing medical assistance or a hospice she had been visited by 911 several times for injuries following bad falls, until she had decided to hire a nurse full time to assist her. Luke was really sorry for Ms. Bauermann, such a sharp mind trapped in a crumbling body, apparently though the pain was now so strong that the painkillers she had to take were making her sleepy all the time, at least Lily said so and he didn't know if this was after all so bad.

"So," Lily went on "I guess I won't be able to unlock any secret on the neighbors living on Ella's floor.."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Well, since I practically live here, I thought it would be nice to know who I share the floor with.. but I didn't mean to be indiscreet, sorry" she took a step back, stopped playing with her hair and turned her look away.

"No, I mean it's reasonable" Luke mumbled desperate to win her attention back, and when she responded positively he went on "So there are four apartments, at number one there's Wilson Black, he's a math professor at university, in his fifties, no wife, no children, no pets, he's a good man, but a bit absent minded always with his equations in his head. Apartment number two is the Connors', wife and husband with three children; she used to be a ballerina but she retired after meeting her husband and opened her own dancing school; he's a stock agent, between the two of them they make big money but they are good people. They have two boys, 11 and 9 years old, and a girl who's 6. Then there is apartment three, right in front of your door, Ms. Prentiss lives there she's lovely. She always gives me cookies or chocolate for the holidays, 'cause she knows I've got a sweet tooth, but you'll barely meet her…" he lowered his voice "She's an FBI agent, she flies all around the country to catch the bad guys, tough job"

"Wow! That is so cool, I live door to door with a secret agent" she smiled in excitement "and is she married? I mean how do your reconcile job and private life when you travel so much?"

"You don't, she is single. But I think she's having a thing with a colleague, a bundle of muscles who often comes by; at first I thought he was a douche bag with all those tough manners but he's actually a cool guy, he always says hello and sometimes we talk about football while he's waiting for her to come down. And that's pretty much it. Nothing scandalous to fuel your imagination" he smiled hoping her curiosity had been satisfied.

"Well, actually that's a lot. Thank you Luke. You never disappoint" she commented giving him one of her special looks.

He was about to gather the courage to ask her out when a lady loaded with plastic bags stumbled on her way to the elevator and dropped half of her shopping on the floor, Luke reluctantly hurried to help her gathering the colorful herd of running tomatoes, apples and oranges spreading all around the hall. Lily smiled looking at the young man pathetically chasing the fruits, then when she was sure no one was looking at her she moved behind Luke's desk and quickly found the panel with the keys of all the apartments, ran her fast fingers on the identification numbers until she found what she wanted: Eleventh Floor, Apartment three. Bingo! She grabbed the key and quickly pressed it on a mold she took out of her purse, once sure the print was clear she put the key back and stepped away from the desk. "I'd better go now, I have to do some shopping and pick up Ella's prescriptions" she smiled at him once he came back to her "Thanks for the little chat"

"Always my pleasure" he waved clumsily and a little disappointed for not getting to ask her out.

"Ah, I was almost forgetting, I will have a guy coming by to fix something wrong with the phone line, maybe tomorrow."

"Sure, no problem"

She left the building and started walking toward the key shop two blocks away. She was smiling aware of the men looking at her in the streets Lily, Lily, Lily you are a really bad girl.

She knew the name choice was not that original, from a flower into another, but at the end of the day she really couldn't care less. She took her phone out of her purse and dialed a number "Hi, honey it's me, Emily. Listen when can you come by to install those wireless cameras in my apartment? Ah,ah… sure. And I will be able to watch in real time from my laptop, right? Oh that's great, I want to get that bastard of my husband on the tape while he shags that bitch in our house. Ok, see you then. I love you too.."

A smile of anticipation surfaced on her lips. Everything was perfect.


	3. I see you, I know you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is going to be a bit complicated. A number of characters are going to be introduced (or have been already), all of them are a product of my imagination, all of them have a place and a meaning in the general frame, so please be patient. Things may seem messy and uselessly complicated but they’re not, once the pieces will be in place the puzzle will make sense. I promise

“I hate it” she shouted from the bedroom where she was picking out the clothes for the following day.  
“Come on Emily, it’s just a deposition. It’s not the first time you do that, you’ll survive” Derek chuckled at her bad mood while taking a beer from the fridge.  
She came out of the bedroom with an expression of pain and uneasiness on her face, like if she was walking toward a death sentence “I know. But the defense attorney, Thompson is a real ass. He hates profilers to begin with. You can’t even start speaking and he’s already jumping at you, presenting examples of cases in which the profile didn’t faithfully describe the unsub, saying that it’s just a question of educated guesswork built on nothing but frail psychological theories. He will just try to turn me into a fraud” she came down the stairs and joined him into the kitchen stealing a sip of his beer.  
“Mmmh, definitely a smoking hot fraud” he grinned pulling her closer “My profiler expertise senses a lot of stress here, Agent Prentiss”  
“Oh well, this is a hell of a deduction Agent Morgan. The bureau is lucky to have a refined observer like you in their rows” she played along.  
He shook his head pretending a concerned expression “Stress and sarcasm. Very, very bad combination.. Someone should do something about that.”  
“Any useful suggestions?”  
“Actually yes, but I will need bath salts, candles and your clothes” he whispered to her ear.  
She giggled “Okay McGiver, let’s see what you can do. Impress me” she challenged him maliciously. As a reply he let down the beer and took her in his arms heading toward the bathroom.  
Later she fell asleep wrapped in his arms, a peaceful smile on her face and the awareness there was nothing that man couldn’t walk her through. Derek fell asleep a bit later intoxicated by the sweet flavor of her skin and the scent of her hair, silently blessing whatever force allowed him to have a second chance with that woman.

None of them heard the entrance door opening; she silently crept in barefoot holding a little torch and trying to take in all the details and the geography of the house. This was just an exploration, the fun would have come later but still she could barely control her excitement. After taking an overall look to the apartment she moved back toward the entrance and near the stares she spotted a small table, empty holster, badge and credentials were resting there. She picked up what she needed and left. This was going to be so much fun.

“Do you want to go over your deposition again?” Morgan offered while taking a sip of coffee the following morning.  
“Don’t you have to be at the BAU?” Emily checked while she was taking badge and gun and getting ready to leave.  
“Still got time”  
“Ok, it’s actually not a case we handled directly. We were called to deliver a profile based on the MO and the victimology; the police arrested Ted Morrison on the base of the profile and then further evidence confirmed him as the unsub. That bastard abducted, tortured and killed seven women. He’s guilty, no doubt and the defense knows that. So because they are desperate and cannot produce any real proof of innocence they are trying to look for procedural inconsistencies. I hate those cases..”  
“Were you working alone on the profile?”  
“No, Rossi was with me”  
“So why they’re not calling him as well?”  
“Because Thompson doesn’t care about the profile in itself, he wants to prove that we were biased and made a profile in order to frame his client, and thinks that this is going to be easier by addressing a woman. It’s a lame strategy for a lame man, disgusting to the bone.”  
“Then show him he’s wrong. If he uses this technique, it means he’s probably intimidated by strong women and gets every chance to diminish them so as to boost his own ego”  
“Strong woman…” she repeated with a grin and kissed him before leaving.

“Agent Prentiss” Jeff Thompson paced slowly in front of the jury, his heavy colony spread in the room hitting the nostrils just a bit too much to be pleasant. Elegant clothes, over confident demeanor, shades of silver sprouting in his hair and no rings on his fingers “So what can you tell us about the profile you and your colleague were required to deliver?”  
“We deducted, according to the victimology and the MO, that the unsub was in his thirties, single and suffered a recent rejection, which had likely been his trigger. He was feeling underestimated at work and in his social life, but his temperament was submissive due to an obsessive and overprotective mother who grew him up alone and was possibly abusive. When all his repressed feelings burst out he started to kill. The women he targeted were responding to a specific set of traits, brunette, in their thirties, successful and strong, they very likely embodied the physical type of the woman who rejected him and against whom all the unsub’s rage was conveyed, by killing them he would relive the fantasy of getting even on her every time. The murders were violent and fast act of fury, not carefully planned and after killing he would try to cover them as a sign of remorse.”  
“And how did you go from the profile to the unsub?”  
“We were called just to deliver a profile, we didn’t take active part to the investigation”  
“So what? You just did a bit of mambo jumbo on a bunch of evidences collected on the scenes, stared at some pictures and picked a handful of characters, which according to your judgment fitted to your unsub?”  
“According to the theories on which profiling is based the profile provided a faithful description of the unsub and as far as I know the evidence gave further support the identity of the perpetrator and thus the reliability of our profile” Emily answered calm, successfully hiding her contempt for the attorney’s colourful definition of profiling.  
“You seem very confident, Agent Prentiss…” he went on with a cheeky smile on his face.  
“Evidence proved me right, so sure I am confident”  
“Well, I guess this allows you to sleep well at night….”  
“I guess it does, as much as your doing your job correctly grants quiet dreams to you” she smiled back. Rossi, who was sitting in the audience cocked his head on the side with a grin of amusement. He didn’t have any doubt Emily would have been perfectly able to bear that dandy’s questions, but he didn’t imagine it would have been so much fun to watch.  
He turned to her, a little spark in his eyes “It must be difficult to do your job impartially when the victims you see look a lot like you, Agent Prentiss”  
She couldn’t believe he was going to play that card.  
“But the truth is that the profile you gave was a very vague bunch of characteristics that the police used to frame my client… Frustrated guy, in his thirties, not appreciated by his boss and ditched by a woman, ah and having a protective mother” he added the last detail with a pathetic tone, looking for approval in the jury, “for example, Agent Prentiss, do you know how many people are there in this room who fit the profile I just described?” he got closer, pointing aggressively his pen in front of her face.  
Emily couldn’t help noticing his morbid attachment to that pen and how that was an overt and sorry surrogate to sooth his sexual frustration. She looked him in the eyes with no emotion and calmly answered “Well, Mr. Thompson, at least two men here respond to the profile” the attorney smiled in victory “Your client and you” she carried on.  
Rossi this time failed to repress his giggles, along with the audience whose whispers filled the room for few seconds. Thompson froze, his face turning crimson, but Emily didn’t give him the time to object “You have grown up with a mother who was overly severe and protective, every time you face someone of her age belt you automatically bow your head and low your voice tone as if to make sure your demeanor is appropriate and conforming to her teachings, but when you address a younger woman you use all your seductive charm. You indulge on younger girls fascinated by your ways, but you get aggressive and edgy when you approach women who don’t believe to your façade, because they are a threat to your self-confidence. You’re getting anxious about finding a wife, probably for the need not to disappoint your mother’s expectations, so you keep fit going regularly to the gym, wear expensive colony and cover the gray hair with dye in the attempt to impress women and look younger. The profile was right Mr. Thompson, but this is not the point because profile or not the evidence speaks by itself and proves your client responsible of the crimes he’s charged with, and this makes me wonder why I am here in the first place”  
“Me too” the judge intervened addressing Thompson with impatience.  
Thompson was panting; he tiredly turned to the judge “Honor. Objection, objection, objection…” his shoulders shivering with rage.  
“To what? Unless you can prove the profile we just heard is wrong, I suggest you to give me something I can hold on to or sit down”  
He looked the FBI agent with a glare full of hatred and frustration and motioned with his pen “I am done for now”.

“Okay. So, my husband is out for the day but nonetheless I’d like to have this set as soon as possible” she addressed the man who was walking right behind her.  
“As you want honey… I like when you are bossy” he grinned back to her.  
“Bryan” she turned, marking the adequate personal distance with her extended arm, “I live in this building, with my husband, who I am trying to frame for cheating in order to get a decent divorce agreement. So you will understand why it is not terribly convenient that you call me honey or you look at me as if you were about to tear my clothes apart”  
“But I’m going to tear your clothes apart, Emily” he commented with a suggestive look.  
Being called with that name gave her a slight feeling of irritation, as well as every time he would invoke her while he was climaxing, nonetheless she kept her composure reminding herself the ultimate reason why she was juggling with three identities “Fair enough, but everything at the right moment. I promise I will make it up to you for your patience” she smiled maliciously waving her long blond hair.  
She entered the building followed by Bryan, the doorkeepter noticed the tall, athletic man, the tattoo on the side of his neck, the ruffled look and instinctively didn’t like him, but knew he was the phone guy as she forewarned him the previous day so he didn’t stop them and simply greeted her “Hello Lily”  
“Hi Luke” she returned with a smile.

“Hello Lily?” Bryan repeated with a questioning look once inside the elevator.  
“He’s a sweet boy, but not very smart. He keeps forgetting my name and calls me Lily. But he’s useful, so I don’t bother too much”  
He stared at her with an eyebrow raised “Do you sleep with him?”  
“You are such an asshole” she commented without too much energy, this guy was such a loser.  
He laughed back “just teasing”.

Entering Emily’s house gave her the same thrill as the night before, thanks to that first foraging bout she was able to spot the places where she wanted the cameras to be installed. She knew Emily was in DC, but she hadn’t a clue on when she would be back, and this was a hazard.  
She had met Bryan few weeks before, he was walking bored around the mall waiting for his wife to do the shopping and while the poor bitch was around gathering the ingredients for his favorite pie, he killed the time with Lily inside the dressing room.  
Bryan was a pure idiot, violent and unfaithful with his wife, but he was really good with electronic apparels, home security cameras and computer stuff, exactly what she needed and it turned handy for her plan, besides he didn’t ask many questions and she knew exactly how to redirect his curiosity when it went down unwanted paths.  
She made him install three cameras, one in the master bedroom and two in the living room one pointing from the kitchen perspective and the other one from the stairs. He set the transmitting frequencies and the connection with her laptop “This way you should be the only one able to see what’s going on, unless some very good hacker enters your system, but it’s unlikely. In order to catch the signal though you have to be within a range between 250 and 450 feet, also the filmed content will be automatically uploaded on a safe directory to which you and only you have access. The trap is set” he smiled satisfied.  
“Sounds good to me. Now let’s get out of here and I’ll find the right reward for you” she smiled excited.


	4. Angel face, dark thoughts

“Please everybody, may I have your attention?” the group of people sitting at the round table in what had become one of their favorite places for celebrations, turned silent and watched Garcia standing with her glass up “Let’s have a toast to our strong, determinate, fearless, brilliant, sexy profiler who gave that dumb-ass of what’s-his-name attorney a taste of what profiling is and contributed to shove one more sadistic psychopath into the place he belongs. Let’s rise our glasses to Emily Kick-Ass Prentiss!”  
The team cheered up laughing at the unconventional toast proposed by their technical analyst, while the other clients in the restaurant frowned in overhearing the words kick-ass and sadistic psychopath in a toast.  
“If you weren’t such good regular clients I think my boss would have already considered banning you from this place” a familiar voice approached them “my goodness Emily every time I pass by it’s either unsubs or slaughtering or victimology that you are talking about…”  
Emily laughed and got up to hug her old friend “Eddie, it’s so nice to see you!”  
“But then you would also lose one of the best pianists who ever played in this restaurant” Morgan commented shaking Eddie’s hand.  
“You’re so right man! By the way when you want the piano is all yours” Eddie winked to Emily “so what are we toasting?” he questioned.  
“Ten days ago Emily was called to testify in a process against a serial rapist” Rossi explained “and today we got the news that he was convicted. It’s a big win also because the defense lawyer gave her a hard time but she didn’t let him get away with that. To be honest she put up a hell of a show” he giggled thinking back of her deposition.  
“Yeah, Rossi’s report reminds me of a similar performance Hotch gave years ago in a similar situation. It started with the color of the lawyer’s socks and it ended with his troubled financial status” Reid commented.  
“Guys I’m starting to think it’s kind of risky to hang out with you” Eddie laughed before going back to his piano “So sweetheart, sure you don’t want to shake it up a bit tonight?” he leaned on Emily’s shoulder pointing his thumb at the piano which originated their friendship months before.  
The profiler, who had turned unusually quiet, shook her head “No thanks Eddie, not tonight” she wasn’t feeling so well all of a sudden, her vision got blurry, her head spinning and her body incredibly heavy. She tried to count how many glasses of wine she had had, but even that single task seemed out of reach for her brain in that moment. There was no way she was going to collapse in front of her team while they were celebrating her. Fortunately in that precise moment the lights went off and a giant birthday cake entered the room headed to a couple of tables farther where a young girl was about to blow 12 candles… Blessed age of ignorance Emily thought using those precious instants to breath deeply and try to bring herself together before her friends noticed something was off, Derek squeezed her hand and she silently thanked him for that anchor to consciousness he was unwillingly providing her with. Few minutes after she was back to normality, but despite the mask of happiness she was wearing, a rising concern was bothering her.

“God grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can and the wisdom to know the difference” the group recited the prayer in circle hands in hands and then they all greeted and spread. The meeting was over.  
A tall, slim brunette approached her at the door “Hi Lily, how are you?”  
“I am good, but I cannot say the same about you, Beth” she commented looking at the clumsily deceived bruises on her face.  
The woman looked away.  
“Look. This is not my business, but I am your friend and I care about you. You can come to the AA meetings as long as you want but unless you leave that bastard you will never really start a new life” Lily took Beth chin in her hand and moved her hair from the forehead exposing the bruise, she shook her head “Oh my God. Come on let’s go and grab a coffee” she looked at the coffee dispenser in the hall where the meeting took place and grinned “a real one”.  
Lily had met Beth about four months before when she started attending the AA meetings, the first time she saw her she almost had a heart attack. The two women had started the program almost simultaneously, Lily had let few details about her life slip away, just the bare necessary to earn her stay at the meetings. Beth and her immediately bonded, the woman didn’t have a very original story, former cheerleader married with the former star of the football team; after getting out of high school they realized that life wasn’t so easy, that it wasn’t enough to be pretty and smile or to have a sculpted chest and big dreams to get somewhere. So they got both stuck in a squalid life and one day realized they were two strangers still living in the remembrance of a long gone past and in the frustration for not having accomplished anything in their life, blaming each other for their own failures. He found escape in other women’s bed and often got violent on her, and she found a shelter into the bottle.  
“So, what was it this time?” Lily asked sitting across from the other woman in a small cafeteria “the soup wasn’t warm enough? You didn’t fold the laundry in the right way? You didn’t please him enough?”  
Beth looked down embarrassed, even after all the conversations they already had over the past months she still felt ashamed in admitting her husband’s systematic abuse.   
Lily sat back on her chair and studied the woman, she thoughtfully ran her tongue on her lip keeping her cold eyes on her, after few seconds leaned over the table hands crossed. “What would you do if you could make him go away, I mean disappear?” she asked in a lower tone.  
Beth raised her head and looked at her friend to make sure she heard correctly. Lily’s face stayed serious, unmoved.  
“What?”  
The blond woman lifted an eyebrow. “… and give me the freedom to live beyond my past ways” she cited a further fragment of the serenity prayer they repeated at the end of every AA meeting.   
“And how do you expect to make him go away?” Beth inquired.  
“Well, I don’t think many people would look for him once he doesn’t show up at work. Wouldn’t they?”  
“Yes but how?” Beth asked again, not understanding, not wanting to understand.  
“How do you get rid of a rat, Beth? You set a trap and then you smash it and you flush it down the loo” she smiled. For a moment the association between those terrible words, that unspeakable intent and her angel face gave Beth the creeps.  
“So I kill the rat and then dump it, and then the police finds me and I spend the rest of my life in jail” she whispered shivering, she really didn’t feel comfortable with that conversation and even more so with the fact that Lily on the contrary seemed perfectly calm and at ease.  
“Not if you play it smart”  
Silence.  
Lily leaned forward “My husband is fucking a bitch in our own house and he’s trying to get away with a cheap divorce which would leave me with nothing, this after ten years of hell spent in fulfilling his needs and tolerating his mood. I lost my self-respect, my health, my job, my youth. I go to AA meetings and he has sex on the kitchen counter. Do I want to let him get away with this? No.”  
Beth was an incredibly messed up woman, but she had always been pretty good at drawing a line between right and wrong, maybe she wasn’t always able to stick to theory but she knew when something was really bad and how to stay away from it. But this woman, this beautiful angel with porcelain face and pieces of sky in her eyes, could make her believe and do whatever she wanted. Anything coming out of her mouth even the worst heresy became sacred and legitimate.  
“Yes but, how do I? How do we?” she mumbled surprised of how easy it had been to step from the incapacity to even think about that to question the logistic of that.  
“I take care of yours, you take care of mine. There are no links between the two of us and the AA meetings, the only place where we were ever seen together, are anonymous”  
Beth heartbeat started running.  
Lily, voice still and calm, directed her back to reality “Listen to me, now you go back home as if it was a regular day. You get back to normality and in two days you meet me at this place” she scribbled an address on a paper napkin “I need to take care of a couple of things in order for this to work” she noticed the disappointment in Beth’s big brown eyes and gently caressed her cheek moving a lock of her raven hair “Believe me, few more days and you’ll be a free woman with a new life ahead, but you have to promise me you will be patient and careful”   
Beth swallowed, her eyes wet with joy, hope raising in her heart for the first time in years “Ok” she mumbled nodding before leaving the bar.   
Lily looked at her going away, even after months she was still amazed every time she saw Beth. As far as she knew that woman could be Emily Prentiss’s secret sister, so much they looked alike.   
And now her Emily Prentiss was about to do some very nasty things…


	5. Everything is under control

Emily got out of the shower and wiped away with a hand the condensation from the mirror in her bathroom, she stood to study her face for several minutes. During the last days she had been more tired than usual and those moments of dizziness were becoming more and more frequent, wine or not there was something wrong. Two nights before that little show at the restaurant, then the previous night she had a nightmare despite the presence of Derek and this was going to become a major issue to control.   
“You look tired” he said tracing a line of kisses on her neck when she reached him into the bedroom.  
She replied with a soft moan.  
He chuckled continuing to tease her.  
Derek ran his hands on her skin, slowly. He was familiar with every centimeter of her body by now, as much as she knew his touch, his lips, his hands, nonetheless the contact between their bodies always left them helpless, sending jolts of pleasure like if it was the first time. But that night was something different, her heartbeat was fast, for some reason she couldn’t explain she felt uncomfortable in that room, the crazy idea someone else beside her and Derek was in there. He seemed to sense her uneasiness and stopped his probing, searching her eyes “Emily? What’s wrong?”  
“I’m just tired, sorry. It’s been a hard week” she answered, careful not to meet his eyes, shield up.  
“It’s not just tonight or the past week” he started the subject carefully “You’ve been elusive and worried lately, and last night the nightmare. I thought it was this thing with the trial and Thompson making you nervous, but now I’m not quite sure about it anymore.”  
Emily turned her face away from him, without answering, not knowing what to answer.  
He gently squeezed her shoulders, in silence without forcing her, just to let her know that whenever she wanted he was there ready to listen.   
Over the past months he had learnt how to get through her defensive shield little by little, earning her trust. It was a push and pull game, letting her know he was there and then patiently waiting for her to be ready and opening up to him, every time a little bit more. It wasn’t always easy to understand the right way to be there for her, and Emily knew how hard he was trying and immensely appreciated his support aware that many other men would have run out of patience by that time. She abandoned herself in his embrace, letting her back rest on his broad chest while his hands proceeded down her arms to her thigh; unwillingly his fingers indulged on one of the scars running across her leg, the only trace that the attack had left on her body. The doctors reassured there wouldn’t have been any sign left, but because of her delicate complexion the wounds had taken time to heal and there were still pink shades to indicate where the cuts had been made.   
For a moment she vividly felt the scalpel penetrating her flesh again, heard her voice, relived the horrible thought that the team wouldn’t get there in time, had that fear ever left her?   
An instant later she was standing against the wall of the bedroom, her eyes blank and still, Morgan few steps away from her, petrified and hands up, calling her name without response.   
It took few minutes to return to breath normally and convince herself she was safe, her ears and eyes started working again and reconnected with reality. She took a step forward and searched Morgan’s embrace “Just hold me, no questions” she begged, exhausted.  
What the hell just happened? What’s haunting you? What you’re not telling me? How long have you been having nightmares? And many other questions stuck in his head. Instead he just complied and held her closer kissing her forehead and gently moving her to the bed. Once laid down she buried her head in his chest wrapping her hands around him, he went on stroking her hair and gently whispering that he wouldn’t go anywhere, that she was safe, from what or who exactly he didn’t have the slightest idea. She finally fell asleep, her body stopped shaking, her breath regular again, whereas Morgan rested still, holding her, eyes wide open in concern, worry and frustration for not noticing before that she was still so troubled.

The following morning he woke up and found the bed empty, Emily was already up. He found her in the kitchen leaning on the counter, a cup of coffee in her hands, staring at the leaving room with a confused gaze as if she was trying to make sense out of something. She welcomed him with a faint smile that didn’t reach her eyes.  
Morgan decided to ignore temporarily what happened the night before in order not to push her too much “So I was thinking I could cook for you tonight..”  
She looked back at him dubious.  
“A nice dinner, the two of us, candle light, at my place so if I burn down the house in the attempt of baking a cake you won’t have to blame me for being homeless” he pleaded her with one of his heartbreaking smiles.  
“Sounds tempting” she took a pause licking her lip and looking for the right words “but I will pass on this one and stay at home”  
“Ok, we can order some food from here..”  
“I mean, alone… that’s the deal, right? We see each other on a regular basis but we don’t live together” she said with an edge of uneasiness, her eyes drifting away from him.  
“Don’t do this Emily” he turned serious.  
“Don’t do what?”  
“Putting on your shield, keeping me at a distance, pretending everything his fine and refusing any help…” he started listing, already familiar with the scheme she adopted when she was worried and wanted to keep people from worrying about her.  
“Derek, look. I care a lot about you, but I also need my space sometimes and…”  
“You care a lot about me?” he interrupted her, trying to control his temper “Seriously. Last night you almost had a nervous breakdown and today you dismiss me like if I was some dude you picked up for a one night stand And now the I-care-a-lot-about-you-but speech?”  
“Oh, come on Morgan. Don’t be so touchy” she tried to minimize.  
“Emily, you know this is not going away just by pretending it didn’t happen, right? You don’t want to talk about this with me, fine. But you have to find some help to get through this trauma because it’s obvious it’s still haunting you.”  
“Don’t you dare profiling me, Derek” she got defensive  
“I am not profiling you, I am caring about you Emily” his concern turning slowly into rage, despite his effort to control it “You want to use the passive-aggressive approach and blame it all on me? Go for it, if you think this might help you. But I warn you, the fact we don’t live together doesn’t mean you can shut down our commitment and cut me off when something you don’t like comes along. The point of being together is that we go through things together, good and bad. And I won’t let you down, but you still don’t trust me, do you? I love you Emily. I love you and it’s not going away just by sending me home” he said it loud getting closer, almost desperate to get to her wherever her mind was trying to hide.   
She thumbed nervously on the counter and finally she spoke “I love you too Derek, but… sometimes I wish I didn’t”  
He took a step back swaying a bit as if someone unexpectedly slammed him on his face and breathed deeply to process what she said. He looked her straight in her eyes, no rage or hunger, just pain and hurt then he left without a word.  
Emily dragged herself to the piano, indulging on the keys without touching them, like the first night she met Eddie. Eventually she dropped her hands on her lap. Derek had never understood he was not the problem, it was herself the one she didn’t trust. And by pushing him away she was just trying to protect him, to stop whatever they were doing before they got too involved and hurt; obviously she was big time late.

Lily entered the apartment soon after Emily had left. She slowly paced through the house, confident and at ease. She made herself a tea and took a look at the view from the big window before sitting on the sofa. It’d been almost two weeks since she started monitoring Emily’s life, violating her privacy and intimacy, knowing her vulnerable and frail side when the guard fell down. So far she had learnt that when alone Emily had troubles in catching sleep and wandered around the house restlessly, looking for comfort or for a simple truce from her anxiety; that coming back from a case she used to have a glass of wine or a sip of whiskey, depending on how hard the case had hit on her; that her Prince Charming’s husky voice was able to crash all her inhibitions and self control; that whenever she noticed something was displaced in the house a mask of panic grew on her face, aware that something was off but doubtful whether that was something real and happening or just a growing obsession in her mind that was driving her paranoid and insane. During her periodical visits to the apartment Lily had rearranged few things, insignificant details but enough to enhance Emily’s sentiment of uneasiness and to further fuel her disorientation she had been administering drugs adding them to all the food and drink she could find. After all being married to a doctor for such a long time had provided her with some very convenient knowledge about drugs’ side effects, and she was sure Ms Bauermann was more that happy to share some of her levodopa with her lovely neighbour. It had been amusing to observe all the side effects arising in Emily: somnolence, arrhythmias, disorientation, confusion, extreme emotional states, vivid dreams and insomnia, now she was looking forward for the hallucinations to show up. The only big problem so far had been to target only Emily and not her Prince Charming who was always annoyingly around, and now that also this problem had been so nicely solved by her nemesis she had no obstacles in her way “Thank you Emily” she smiled getting up and starting her work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, since I am not a doctor I could have made some mistakes regarding the drugs. I did my best to research information, speaking of which many thanks to my dear friend Jonathan, who so kindly offered his medical expertise and answered my questions about the most suitable pharmaceutical compounds to use for the purpose. Nonetheless I don’t know how long does it take for side effects to show up and how much levodopa you have to take for it, so my apologies if this chapter looks closer to sci-fy than to crime ☺


	6. What you cannot see cannot hurt you.... really?

The flight had been quiet, the team had discussed the few elements available for the case that came through in the morning and then Hotch had assigned the different tasks. Emily was silently grateful Emily was silently grateful for not being coupled with Derek for once, whether this had something to do or not with the tension between the two of them and whether the rest of the team had noticed that, she didn’t care.   
They had made an agreement when they started dating each other, not to let their personal emotions enter their professional lives, and she knew that as bad as their fight had been, they were both professional and mature enough to leave this out of the case. Nonetheless not working arm-to-arm was a relief and would have helped both to focus more on the job.  
Once landed Emily and Rossi went to the site of the abduction, Morgan and Reid to talk to the family while Hotch and Garcia went to the police station to be briefed by the chief of the investigation.  
It was a little town in Wisconsin, quiet neighborhood, everybody knowing everybody, scandalously low crime rate, all was screaming normality. At least until three days before when a college student coming back home for holidays was abducted on the way back home.   
Few hours later their arrival into town, the team members met at the station and updated each other on what they found out.   
“Toby looks alright, his parents said he has good grades, he plays football and this is his passion, he is really devoted to sports, he was a popular kid in the local high school and he’s making a reputation even at college” said Reid.  
“Well not just a popular kid,” Morgan specified “he was the quarterback of the team and now he plays in college and has apparently a bright future, he is a celebrity. At this age you cannot be one of the most popular guys in town and be a quiet boy. You are under a lot of pressure, you are an icon, the girls are all around you, your team mates rely on you even though there is a wild competition between each others; the rest is divided between people who hate you and think you are a jerk, and people who love you and want to be your friend just to be as popular as you”   
“So either this kid is an exception, either his family doesn’t know much about him” Rossi commented.  
“Then we’ll need to talk with his former teachers and school mates” Prentiss intervened, then she carried on “one other strange thing we noticed on the abduction site is that there’s no trace of a fight. The witnesses reported that our guy, Toby, was walking in the street when a black van with no plate arrived and stopped exactly in front of him; when then van left Toby wasn’t there anymore. No fighting, no screaming, I mean if this guy is a football player it shouldn’t be so easy to abduct him, he would try to run, to fight, instead nothing.”  
“So what are you saying?” Hotch asked her “That this may not be a crime?”  
“I’m saying that we should consider all the options and that we might not know this guy at all” Emily answered.  
“Fine. Then let’s go and talk to the teachers, teammates, schoolmates, let’s try to figure this out soon” Hotch directed “Garcia, find out who owns a black van here in town; they waited until he was back home, they knew he was in town so it must be someone local. I also want you to enter Toby’s laptop, find if there’s anything unusual”  
Garcia reluctantly accepted the last task, aware of the fact that as much as she hated digging in people’s personal life, this was the only way to find what happened to that young man.  
After a jump into the adolescence world -Derek speaking to the football team and Reid to the teachers and some of the former school mates- the two profilers met in the schoolyard.  
“I have to say I really don’t miss high school” was the first comment Derek released.  
“The former football team superstar, surrounded by cheerleaders doesn’t miss at all his wild teenage years?” Reid mocked his colleague.  
“First of all I was never a star, and to be honest my teenage years back in time were all but fun and celebrity. I was working my ass off to get my fellowship to college and trying to take care of my mother and my sisters, possibly staying away from gangs. Not much of a party. If I look back in time I don’t have anything to share with these kids”  
Reminding of what he knew of Derek’s adolescence Reid immediately regretted his comment and a mortified expression of apology fell on his face.  
“It’s okay kiddo, go on” Derek lifted the awkward atmosphere. Over the years he had learnt to get along with Reid and his occasional lack of tact, the two profilers had developed a special channel of communication and often they didn’t even need to speak their minds to understand each other.   
Reid hinted a faint smile of gratitude and went on “so I talked to the members of the chess, math and chemistry clubs, they all said more or less the same thing. Toby was the celebrity of the school, he worked hard, sometimes he made jokes on nerds but apparently he never got too far with anybody to hold grudges, everybody in town looks up to him as an example to follow”  
“Some guys of the football team who knew him personally said that he’s obsessed with the idea of crossing his father” now it was Derek’s turn to share what he discovered “apparently he is some kind of control freak, who raised his son almost in a military regime, he had curfews, couldn’t date girls, miss the training nor get bad marks, otherwise he would be grounded for weeks. At 16 this is worse than prison man. What I don’t understand is that now the boy is out of home at college. Whoever is holding grudge should have come forward earlier”  
Derek stood silent for a minute and Reid decided to let out what was bothering him, even though he had already been insensitive with Morgan minutes before “Speaking of grudge, I noticed something’s going on between you and Emily today, so I know I am not an expert in the field, but in case you wanted to talk..”  
Derek turned toward his colleague chuckling “Is it so obvious?” and he was about to add some more when Emily reached them.   
“I hate high school” she grumbled with a death look.  
“Welcome to the club” Reid chuckled trying to smooth the cold shoulder she and Derek were giving each other.  
“Apparently” she went on “there was some kind of love triangle between Toby, a cheerleader named Annabel and his tutor Marie, a member of the math club. The two girls were in competition to win Toby’s heart, who couldn’t make a decision. But then during the last year something happened and the three of them became inseparable. When he left tot go to college it was a big deal for the two girls. But here’s the best part, nobody has heard or seen any of them in the last three days. A coincidence?”   
At that point it wasn’t difficult for Garcia to trace the two girls movements and find out that they had rented a chalet into the woods for a week and that Marie’s father owned a black van “Guys, I am not a profiler but I have to side with Emily in saying that this doesn’t look like an abduction at all” Garcia commented after giving the coordinates of the chalet to the profilers already on their way to the cars “These two girls, well at least the math club one, she is smart and brilliant with very good grades and an impressive curriculum. And then she plans an abduction without even trying to cover their tracks? It just doesn't look right"  
“Garcia is right, this is getting weirder and weirder” Rossi commented in the back of the SUV receiving nods of agreement by Hotch and Morgan.  
Reid and Prentiss were on another car and arrived first at the chalet. It was pouring and as soon as they got out of the car they were already soaked.   
The only noise was the one produced by the rain drops on the thick layer of dead leaves on the ground, suddenly they heard some distinct voices screaming inside the house and decided to enter immediately without waiting for the rest of the team that was few minutes away. Emily ahead and Reid just behind her, on the phone, requesting immediate back up.   
As soon as the rest of the team reached the chalet a police squad was already there, a couple of officers leaving the chalet and reaching their cars to contact their chief looked at them with pale, abashed expressions. The situation didn't look promising and the profilers' concern started growing when they couldn't spot their team members, finally while they were getting closer to the entrance of the house they caught a glimpse of Prentiss hurrying out from the back door her shoulders lightly shaking and Reid immediately after her, this turned the concern into alarm. They covered the distance between them and Reid with fast pace and dark faces, when they reached him, he was almost speechless and Emily was nowhere to be seen.  
"Hi guys" he started uncertain on how to phrase his explanation, he coughed to clear his voice "Ehm, I think Emily was right on the fact of not having a crime…"  
"Reid what the hell happened?" Morgan pressed. He was worried about Emily, but didn't want to run after her before knowing what was going on and what her reaction could possibly be.  
"When we got to the house we heard screaming" Emily's voice came from behind them causing them all to turn to her. Reid was slightly relieved when the older profiler took over "so we decided to enter. Inside we found the two girls, screaming -I am not going to repeat the exact wording-, dressed with… well I wouldn't even call them clothes…" her voice cracking, her shoulders shaking and eyes drifting away from the rest of the team "and Toby cuffed, with his football helmet on, and nothing else" now her voice was a feeble whisper, she brought a hand to her forehead and started shaking with uncontrollable laughs "You should have seen their faces when we interrupted their party screaming 'FBI'"  
The three profilers tried to make sense out of Emily's confused recount, while she was now giggling out of control and barely holding her composure. Reid tried to clarify the obvious "Ehm, it wasn't an abduction, it was a sex party... Apparently there really was this love triangle…They didn't even think about the police, it was part of the game to add some spice to the thing, making it look like an abduction…"  
"And we travelled across states" Emily barely found her way through laughs "to stop an orgy… under the flood…"  
Rossi was the first to break his serious mask and to start giggling, then Hotch and Reid followed, eventually also Derek relaxed, a smile cracking on his face not much for the situation but for the pleasure of seeing Emily finally laughing after such dark days, the rain cleansing their grudge, their resent.   
After they put themselves together Rossi, Hotch and Reid went to talk respectively to the sheriff, the families and to contact Garcia who would have teased them over and over in order to have the detailed story. Emily and Derek stood still under the pouring rain for a while, staring at each other few meters apart; Emily's smile faded and she got serious as she walked toward him closing the distance "We need to talk, I need to talk to you" she simply said.  
Derek nodded "Why don't you come by later, after we get home and I'll try not to burn the house" he dared a smile.  
A hint of amusement appeared for a second on her face, before moving back to the car, leaving him hope for reconciliation.

Once home Emily poured herself a glass of wine, in another occasion she would have been upset about the useless ride to Wisconsin, but this case actually gave her some hope. They started the investigation thinking that something horrible happened to that guy, so much they were used to see psychopaths and deaths and crimes everywhere that they didn’t even considered it wasn’t a crime at all. When she entered that chalet and found those poor kids, naked, caught in their sinful games she had started laughing not just because of the hilarity of the situation, but also because of the hope that maybe she could have ended up laughing about herself as well. The last months had been terribly hard for her and maybe she got too worried about the hangovers of the past weeks, like an hypochondriac patient who thinks he's about to die every time he sneezes. Maybe her obsessions and fears tossed her back to the nightmares and drove her to the verge of the break up with Derek, maybe that morning she overreacted when he suggested she needed help. After all how crazy could it be even to think that a psychopath was stalking her for revenge? The fact that this happened once to Hotch didn't mean that it was happening to her as well, and then on what basis could she say so? Dreams and dizziness? Certainly it was just a trick her mind was playing on her and she didn't have any reason to be afraid. Certainly Rose just wanted to play with her mind months back when she left that Rose at her door, for sure now she was somewhere far away, and as much as the thought of hoe free to hurt someone else was flustering and frustrating, she couldn't do anything about it and she had to find a way to let go. She had a relaxing bath and then picked a nice dress to wear for the dinner with Derek, determined to make it up to him and apologizing for being so defiant and elusive. After getting ready she went down the stairs heading out, it was only then that she spotted it, lightly posed on the keys of the piano. She stared at it petrified, she was sure it wasn’t there when she entered.  
She tried to breath and to overcome the panic, unable to take her eyes away from the single red rose lying there.  
There was only one person who could help her to understand if she was becoming insane or not. She grabbed the keys of the car, her cell phone and ran out of the apartment.


	7. I know what you did last night!

Reid was reading an astrophysics essay when he heard someone repeatedly knocking at the door, as soon as he opened it he found a visibly altered Emily. It took him a while to take in the situation, not being used to see the profiler letting out her emotion or to see her in such an outfit.   
Emily caught his gaze and looked down at herself realizing she was still wearing the dress which was intended to dine with Derek, a kind of dress that she never wore to go to work, a kind of dress not meant to stay on for long “I had to go on a date” she cut the story short, then seeing Reid furrowing even more confused “but I didn’t go in the end, because I needed to talk to you, and I would appreciate your discretion…” she added suggestively, hoping to be invited in at some point.  
“Oh, yes sure. Come in, I just didn’t expect any visitor, I thought you were with.. Anyway you said you needed to talk” he awkwardly inferred, not knowing exactly how much he was supposed to know about her personal life. He moved to the side and invited her to take a sit into his living room.  
Reid lived in a pretty, cozy studio apartment filled with books mainly, a chess board was lying on a coffee table beside the couch; a radio and a laptop were the only signs that the 21st century had crossed the threshold of his apartment; the living room led directly to a small kitchen, a counter being the only separation between the two rooms. Emily sat on the couch and Reid across from her.  
She noticed his uncomfortable expression and marveled at the fact that even though they were spending so much time together, yet he was thrown off balance when facing the simplest social interaction or a situation in which statistics, learned skills and his unlimited knowledge couldn’t supply all the answers. She tried to ease the atmosphere “Please Reid, you know that my relationship with Derek is not a secret. We just try not to show it off at work for obvious reasons. But anyway this is not the reason why I am here.”  
Reid unwillingly released a deep sigh, relieved by the fact he was not going to be consulted in love troubles and displaying a more relaxed smile inquired “Can I offer you some tea?”  
Emily nodded with a smile.  
“So what can I do for you?” he asked coming back from the kitchen with two steamy mugs.  
“I need you to help me to understand if I am becoming insane, I mean clinically” she said serious, and for a moment Reid stared at her speechless, wishing to get back to the love troubles.  
“What do you mean by clinically insane exactly?” he cautiously ventured a conversation he would have never imagined to have if not referred to himself.  
“Obsessive behaviour, dizziness, shifting between extreme emotional states, insomnia and when finally falling asleep nightmares, exhaustion but also ability to concentrate and to take in details with more clarity than usual” at that point her telephone rang. Derek was calling. She took a deep breath and ignored the call.  
“Well more than a psychotic break down, what you described is closer to drug intoxication. Before thinking of a neurological or psychosomatic condition you might consider getting tested for drug abuse. Have you been taking something lately?”  
She looked at him with a self-explanatory look.  
“Then maybe someone drugged you?”  
“Reid it’s not a one time thing, someone pours some ecstasy in my drink at a bar and I feel funny for the night. It’s been weeks, who can drug me for that long without being discovered, also considering that either I am at work either I’m at home..” she froze for a second, remembering the unpleasant feeling of being under observation, and the objects which seemed to change place in the house, and the rose.  
The phone rang again. Again Derek. Again she ignored the call.  
Reid glanced at the phone, then at her “He must be pretty worried.. Emily, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you should let him know you are all right..”  
Emily looked at him half surprised for the unexpected advice in relationship matter and half guilty because she knew he was right. “I know. I will” she replied slightly arching her lips. “Thank you Reid” She got up and moved toward the door.  
“Emily, what’s going on?”  
“I am not sure exactly, but I will tell you as soon as I figure it out”  
“Wait. Until you figure out what?”  
“Whether I am getting crazy or not” she smiled before heading out of the door “Ah, Spencer? Can this conversation stay between us, please?”  
“You were never here” he smiled, not completely able to deceive his concern for her; the last time she headed down a lonely investigation it almost cost her life, and now the premises didn’t leave much room to optimism. Nonetheless he knew first hand that figuring out and fighting one’s personal demons wasn’t a team work, and all he could do was to be there offering his support and friendship.  
Once in the car Emily checked her phone. Five missed calls from Derek, one text from Derek “where are you? Please answer the phone!” and one text from an unknown sender “Ok, I’ll be there. D.T.” probably someone called D.T. who entered the wrong number and accidentally sent her a message intended for someone else.  
She looked at the clock it was 10:35 she was awfully late and definitely not in the mood for dining and talking, so she reluctantly prepared to lie to Morgan, something she hated. If she had told him about the suspects she had he would either take her for crazy, either set a police patrol at her apartment to protect her and neither of those perspectives appealed her at the moment. She blurted out some faint excuse about having fallen asleep and not feeling very well; the thought of how much he invested in that dinner and how deeply disappointed he must have been by her ditch broke her heart. Even though he had been supportive and understanding for such a long time she knew his patience wasn’t infinite, and she was dreading the last drop which would make the barrel flood. Hoping not to lose him for good she started the engine and headed to visit someone who might help her to clear her ideas.  
On the other side of the line Derek released a sigh and threw the phone on the sofa after ending the conversation with Emily. He blew the candles he had set on the table and stored inside the fridge the food he cooked for their dinner, then he took sometime to contemplate the little box he had prepared for her, inside a copy of the keys of his apartment, just a reminder of the fact that his house was always opened for her and that she could come anytime she wanted. He laughed at himself, thinking he’d been such a fool hours before in hoping he could have won some more trust from her, he closed the box and shoved it into a drawer.

Beth was wearing a black tight dress ending a couple of inches above the knee, with thin straps over her shoulders and high heels, her hair gathered loosely and a shade of make up on her face. It had been years since the last time she dressed up; her husband had stopped looking at her long time ago and considering that the bottle didn’t require any dress code and that a man beating her daily was enough, she had never gone out on a date nor lingered on the thought of having some company. But that night rescuing an old dress from her closet she had realized that the remembrance of her cheerleading years hadn’t left her shapes completely and that that attire actually looked nice on her.  
She had never been so nervous in all her life, her hands were sweating, her mouth dry and she had been going over the instructions Lily had given her few hours before a hundred times already.  
I arranged an appointment between my husband and his whore at the Days Inn Hotel tonight at 11:30. A room is already booked under her name, thus at the reception you will introduce yourself as Emily Prentiss, ask for your room and tell them to send my husband, Mr. Doug Thompson, up when he arrives. They will ask you a document and you will show the ID I gave you. When he joins you in the room you will be waiting for him, so don’t be late.   
It was 10:50 she would have had plenty of time to get familiar with the room, where to wait for him, where to kill him…Beth swallowed hard and tried to calm down, a voice in the back of her mind screaming it wasn’t too late to back off and run away just before entering the hall of the hotel.   
Keep your head down, don’t look up, avoid the security cameras; when you enter the lift stare at the panel, stay away from the mirror and don’t look up.  
She resolved to go on, Lily had put herself on the stake for her and now she couldn’t run away. She felt a shiver of excitement like if she was in a spy movie; she crossed the hall keeping her head high, feeling flattered by the glances of several clients indulging on her.  
Don’t talk to anybody, reduce the conversation to the bare necessary. Don’t do or say anything that could make people remind of you. You enter, do the job and leave without being noticed.  
“Hei there” she approached the receptionist with a smile “My name is Emily Prentiss, I booked a room for the night”  
The receptionist smiled politely at her “Yes Madam, can I see a document please?”  
Beth all of a sudden had a memory of when at fifteen she got caught with a fake ID trying to sneak into a club, her older brother had to pick her up at the police station, her parents made a huge scene, at school she had been a mockery for weeks. A wave of panic caught her and she figured the only way to stop it was to distract herself from the thought “I love your French manicure” she addressed the employee who was processing her ID and getting through the check in.  
“Thank you” the young woman answered with a broader smile, “I do it in a beauty center few blocks away from here, I can give you the address if you like”  
“Oh sure I’d love to. Thank you… Gloria” she smiled reading the name on the tag on the woman’s uniform and taking key and ID card “Ah, I am expecting a friend, his name is Doug Thompson, can you send him upstairs when he arrives?”  
Gloria nodded discretely, thinking it was so rare to meet nice clients.   
Once in the elevator Beth checked her make up in the mirror, proud of having successfully accomplished the first part of the mission.  
Entering her room she took a look at the space, a small entry lead immediately on the left to a bathroom and then opened on a simply furnished bedroom. On the left side of the room there was a double bed with two bedside tables and relative lamps; on the right side a closet and a desk with a chair, in front of her a big window with a nice view of the night skyline. She sat on the edge of the bed pulling out the gun with the silencer Lily gave her wrapped in a cloth.  
Keep the lights low, when he enters don’t waste time, go closer and shoot him. Once he’s down shoot him again and make sure he’s dead.  
11.20. Almost there. Beth started fidgeting, the growing awareness she was about to take the life of a stranger. A life for a life. A life for her freedom. She realized this wasn’t of any consolation.

Doug Thompson expected everything but to be contacted by Agent Prentiss after the humiliation she inflicted to him during her deposition, even less he expected her to come forward with some information that would help his client in appeal. He had to read her text twice to make sure he wasn’t having delusions “I have useful information to help your client. Meet me at the Days Inn tonight at 11:30. Emily Prentiss”.   
Thompson had learnt from his job never to trust anyone and especially a woman. Even more so a woman like Emily Prentiss who by observing the way you walked could tell when was the last time you brushed your teeth, so he decided to go to the meeting well prepared; he positioned the micro camera on the collar of his jacket and left his car. He was surprised when Gloria, the nice receptionist, sent him upstairs to a room either what Emily Prentiss had to tell him was strictly classified, either she wasn’t just planning to talk, after all maybe she didn’t dislike him as much as she let him think during the trial. He smiled exploring the possible scenarios and walked out of the elevator ready to all the potential outcomes of that meeting, when he entered the room the light was dim and her figure was standing near the window, giving the shoulders to him.  
“Ehm, Agent Prentiss? Emily?” he approached in a tentatively husky voice, walking toward her and switching on the main light “So, what did you want to tell me so import…” his mouth dropped open when the woman turned toward him, “And who the hell are you?” his brain in the meanwhile taking in two main pieces of information, the first the woman walking toward him was not Emily Prentiss and was seriously upset, the second she had a gun. Of all the possible outcomes he had considered this was not among the contemplated alternatives. He tried to formulate a thought, then he heard a soft noise repeating once, twice, followed by an acute pain in his chest. He fell on the ground gasping for air, utter astonishment in realizing his hands were full of blood, his blood. The last thing he saw was the barrel of the gun coming closer to his face, then again that soft noise, for the last time.

Once you’re done go to the toilet and check yourself, remove any trace of blood. Take a picture of him with the Polaroid I gave you, I want to see the last expression on his face before he died. Take the gun with you and leave the rest. Clean all the prints on door handles and surfaces and leave. Don’t run, breath deeply and walk relaxed. Once you’re in the car drive away and come to the house where we met last time. Leave there the gun, ID card and Polaroid. Then go home.

Gloria’s gaze followed the woman she knew as Emily Prentiss leaving the hotel as fast as hell and furrowed thinking it was a shame to pay a room for a night and use it just for an hour.  
Beth ran to her car gasping for air, she started the engine and left the place complying all the instructions. Once home her phone rang, a familiar sweet voice immediately soothed her panic. “Well done. Now it’s my turn. Tomorrow afternoon at 2 o’clock leave the house and come back by 4 o’ clock. Sweet dreams”

Emily left the hospital at 8 o’clock in the morning, she barely slept the night before. When she came back home the rose had disappeared, and this made her theories about her nemesis chasing her crumbling again and threw her in the discomfort of the psychosis hypothesis. Nonetheless she woke up early and went to the hospital for a blood test.  
She got to the office at 8:30. Derek was already there, staring at her with a really not promising look and how could she blame him? She bit her lip and started in a whisper with pleading eyes “Look, I know I was unforgivable, but I have an explanation and if you give me another chance, just one, I promise I will explain everything”  
He stared at her, thumbing on his cup of coffee, a skeptical look showing his reservoir of patience was very close to run out, then he released a sigh “Fine” he nodded without showing too much enthusiasm and got up to leave his desk.  
“Derek, wait” she grabbed his arm “last night I…”  
“Agent Emily Prentiss?” a voice interrupted her and made both of them turn.  
“Yes?”  
A man. accompanied by two police officers and Chief Strauss in the back wearing the darkest face she’d ever seen on her, moved toward her “Emily Prentiss, you are under arrest for the murder of Doug Thompson. You have the right to remain silent, everything you say could be held against you in court..” She didn’t hear the rest of the formula, she didn’t see Hotch coming out of his office with an upset expression on his face asking for explanations, she didn’t hear Derek storming against the detective and Strauss, she didn’t see the panic on Reid’s and Penelope’s frozen faces when they entered the bull pen and saw her cuffed and taken away.   
The only thing she could think of was that she had been framed, and for sure she wasn’t turning mental.


	8. The truth is you don't know anything about me

Chapter Eight: the truth is you don’t know anything about me

Beth woke up suddenly with a familiar and unpleasant feeling at the mouth of her stomach, a feeling she’d hoped not to deal with ever again; only when she spotted the empty bottle on the coffee table everything came back in focus, the guilt raised in her gut for drinking and breaking her vow, then the memory of what happened at the hotel the previous night, was it even real? For a while the alcohol managed to numb her memories but now her conscience was knocking at the door claiming to take responsibilities.  
Many inconsistencies started surfacing in her memories by the time the effect of the alcohol wore off. To begin with, that man was nothing like she had imagined according Lily’s description of her husband, mean, arrogant, merciless. Beth had sought signs of evil temperament in his eyes, in his demeanor, in his voice, but what she saw was just fear and surprise at the sight of the loaded gun in her hand. True that evil often comes well disguised and a good-looking man doesn’t make a good man, but she had the nagging feeling that she had killed an innocent man. Then there was the way he approached her when he entered the room, certainly not the way a man greets his secret lover, there was no familiarity, no malice in his voice while he was addressing her first as Agent Prentiss and then as Emily. Was that a sick doctor-patient game or there was a part of the story she hadn’t been told?  
She nervously glanced at the clock, leave the house by two and come back by four. It was only eleven in the morning, how to keep herself busy until the time Lily would have fulfilled her part of the deal? She vehemently grabbed the empty bottle and threw it into the rubbish bin not tolerating the remainder of her shortcomings in plain sight. If only could it be so simple to stash away the memory of that face, that expression of pure fear while he was exhaling his last breath.  
She paced around the living room like a caged animal for a while, then she sat on the sofa fidgeting and biting her nails, she switched on the TV hoping for some distraction and finally the rhythmic switch from channel to channel ensued by the regular click on the remote control seemed to accord some relief, until the news channel appeared on the screen and there he was. Beth’s fingers froze and she couldn’t help listening to the journalist describing Thompson as ‘a single man who devoted his entire life to his profession’, he went on praising his notorious, despite controversial, work as defense attorney. Thompson’s body was found in the early morning in a hotel room in Washington DC, shot to death; names were not going to be released but the lawyer’s death appeared to be connected to a law enforcement officer. The connection in her mind was immediate, Agent Prentiss.  
Beth felt her limbs stiffening and her blood freezing into her veins instantly. A mix of fear, resentment and confusion arose in her clouded mind; she had opened her heart to Lily believing she was a true friend and now she was stuck with a still fairly alive husband, a dead innocent lawyer on her conscience and an agent charged with murder on her behalf. A surge of panic took her, they would have found her and then they would have closed her in jail and thrown the key, and since she was a lawyer’s murderer no defense attorney would have ever taken up on her case.  
She got up from the sofa with the resolution of at least trying to make it right, to get an explanation from Lily, to understand why she made her kill a perfect stranger who wasn’t even her husband. She switched off the television and turned around to head out of the room, she hardly had the time to see everything going black and hear a metallic noise similar to a gong, rightly followed by a softer one, the kind of noise a ripened fruit produces falling to the ground. Then she fell on her butt, an acute ache surging in the middle of her face and a warm fountain of blood running out of her nose soaking her T-shirt. She lifted her head, her lips arched downward, able to emit just a feeble moan, everything looked foggy because of the pain and the tears in her eyes, but she could clearly recognize that figure, those blue eyes and the blond hair.  
“Going somewhere?” Lily greeted her, then she raised the pan and hit again.

Hotch had spent the morning in the conference room with Chief Strauss, Rossi and Detective Parker, the officer who had arrested Emily, trying to smooth things and had the BAU be part of the investigation. The atmosphere was dire and tense but the fact that they had been closed in there for so long meant that there was at least room for discussion. Reid and Morgan were lingering over their desks, pretending to be focused on some kind of work related tasks and Garcia was making up all the possible excuses to dwell in the bullpen and keep an eye on the situation. When Rossi finally left the conference room they all straightened up on their seats in the hope of getting some hints. He stopped in front of his office and beckoned them, silently soliciting the team to join him in.  
Morgan was the first to get up, he made the steps two by two and entered Rossi’s office stopping in front of his desk “What the hell is going on?” he stormed nervously, his gaze intense and his lips sealed in a thin line.  
“This is what I was about to ask you. Do you have any idea on what is this all about?” Rossi responded with the usual calmness.  
“Rossi, we know as much as you do. We arrived here this morning and the police came here to arrest her for murder” Derek answered upset.  
“Actually you were already here Morgan. Did she say anything, has she been acting strange lately?” he inquired ignoring his edgy manners.  
“Wait, sir. Are you actually speculating that she might be the murderer?” Garcia intervened with alarm and indignation.  
Rossi took a deep breath and motioned his hand forward to encourage everybody to calm down “Guys, I know that when a case hits home it’s always hard to remain focused, and we all know that we’ve had more than enough of those cases. Emily has been through a very tough time and we all know she’s incapable of killing an innocent man cold blood” he noticed a bit of tension wearing off from their faces, Derek’s clenched hands releasing the grip, so he carried on “To me this team means no less family than to you. By no means I am taking the side of detective Parker, and to be honest I think he couldn’t be more happy if we stepped in and gave a hand; the all case is a house of cards and he has actually nothing substantial on Emily. This case is political, Thompson was a name and at the upper levels they want someone behind bars as soon as possible to show the system works. Hotch and Strauss are trying to gain some grip on the case exploiting the fact that the Bureau hasn’t been notified about the accusation and we don’t want this lack of professional courtesy to be the beginning of a cold war between FBI and Police Department. So this means we can at least buy some time and try to figure this case out before someone else messes with it.”  
“What do you want us to do?” Garcia was the first to step in.  
“Let’s take a step back and go over what we know about this case.”  
“But we haven’t been invited in” Reid objected.  
“We are not taking any action, we are just going over information we have received and there’s nothing wrong to be well prepared, right?”  
The nods of his colleagues authorized him to proceed “What we know is that yesterday at around 8:30 pm Thompson received a message on his cell from Emily’s phone telling to meet at the Days Inn at 11:30 pm in order to exchange useful information on Morrison. The police already verified that the phone from which the message was sent is actually Emily’s. The receptionist at the Hotel remembers registering a client under the name of Emily Prentiss, a brunette with bangs in her thirties. She confirms that Thompson went up to her room and that fifteen minutes later she was running like a fury out of the hotel.”  
“Was she shown a picture of Emily” Derek asked  
“Not that I’m aware of” the older profiler answered.  
“Yes but then there’s the message from her phone, which is bad” Reid commented.  
“Yes, it is. But what bugs me more is all the rest. Emily is a smart intelligent agent, she knows the law, she sees crime all day. Let’s even speculate that she wants to kill Thompson; she books a room under her name, then she does everything in order to be recognized and connected to the murder, including contacting him with her own phone? And then the motive: Emily didn’t have any grudge against him, in case it was the contrary and she believed in Morrison being guilty, why should she lure him in with inexistent proof of his client’s innocence. This story has holes everywhere. To me it’s a poorly designed attempt to set her up, but then why killing Thompson? And who would ever want to do such thing to her?”  
“Ok then. We all agree that she is innocent and this case has no real basis. How can we prove it if we are not invited in?” Derek snapped, “I mean what the hell is the police doing? Are they questioning her? Are they showing her picture to someone at the hotel? Are they checking if she’s on any of the security tapes? And what does it mean a brunette with bangs? It fits the description of half of the women in Washington”   
Rossi couldn’t answer, but then noticed how both Reid and Morgan were fidgeting all the time “Is there anything else I should know about this case? Something you’re not telling me. Did Emily talk to any of you last night? Was she upset or scared?”  
Morgan paced through the room running one hand over his head and looking out of the window over the bullpen. Rossi’s voice took him aback “Morgan, if you are worried of disciplinary procedures I might remind you that Emily is facing a charge for homicide, so you’d better spit your guts. Also because your relationship with Prentiss, though well disguised, is no secret to any of us in the team and the information don’t necessarily have to reach the upper levels.”  
Morgan pondered for a second Rossi’s words, he was right the post was too high, but it was not a slap on his hands for violating the fraternization rules that he was afraid of, the information he knew actually could put Emily in even bigger troubles.  
“Derek” this time was Penelope speaking “we’re family, at least we have to trust each other”  
He finally turned “She’s been tense in the past few weeks” he started, though without openly admitting their relationship “she was nervous about something and in the beginning I thought it was the process, but I’m not sure about that anymore. She has nightmares, I think she has them more often than she admits, it has to do with Rose Lawson but she’s stubborn and refuses help. We had a fight before going to Wisconsin, then last night she was supposed to come over but at around half past ten she called me saying she didn’t feel well and she needed some sleep. That’s all I know and actually none of it is going to help her” he came back to his seat with frustration in his eyes, Penelope gently rubbing a hand on his shoulder.  
“She was not at home last night” Reid confessed in a flat tone, breaking the thoughtful silence in the room and causing worried glances to convey on him instantly.  
“What?” Derek’s voice was half between surprise and resent.  
“She came to my apartment, she made me promise not to tell anyone. She wanted to talk, because she was upset about something..”  
“What was that?” Rossi, who had been listening impassive all the way, asked.  
“I don’t know exactly, she told me that once she discovered it she would have told me. She was afraid she was turning insane, mentally insane”  
“And what did you tell her?” Rossi inquired before Derek could.  
“Well, according to the symptoms she described I suggested her to run some blood tests for drug abuse or intoxication”  
“Reid, are you suggesting Emily is an addict?” Morgan aggressively leaned toward him.  
“No, I’m suggesting that someone has been systematically poisoning her with some compounds that make her feel like she’s going crazy. And when I suggested this option at first she refused it, then suddenly she told me that she had to check something and left. It was around 10:30”  
“Which still leaves her without an alibi for the time of the murder” Rossi brushed his hands on his face then he resolved “Ok, what you two have just told about Emily doesn’t leave this room until we can figure out what’s haunting her and gain more insight on the case. We don’t need to fuel further police suspicions and still I don’t believe she killed that man”  
Before the team could nod, Hotch entered the room a grave expression on his face “The Washington PD agreed in letting us help with the investigation, but it must be clear we are not in charge, we are just helping out so we have to be careful. Also the police finally retrieved the security camera footage from the hotel and a micro-camera on Thompson’s body, apparently he was obsessed about being framed or blackmailed and he carried it around at all his appointments with informants. Being the WPD overwhelmed with other cases I suggested that you Penelope could help with the security videos and the micro camera, one of their men will assist you during all the process”  
“Yes sir, oh and I don’t need help sir” Garcia was right on her toes.  
Hotch raised his eyebrows “I know Garcia, but we’re being kind since we are helping and not directing. Remember?”  
The technician nodded leaving the room and grumping about having some stranger in her office touching her stuff, invading her space and insinuating her friend was a killer.  
Hotch then addressed the rest of the team “Reid you go and help Garcia with the videos, Rossi and Morgan with me. Parker is going to question Emily and we are invited to assist”

Beth opened her eyes slowly, her vision still clouded, her blood sticky all over her face and clothes. She realized she was on the sofa, hands and feet tied, a cloth over her mouth.  
Lily was sitting across from her on the coffee table a different look on her face, she was always beautiful but there was now a frightening mask of evil on her expression, Beth shivered and couldn’t help remembering the same feeling from the first time Lily hinted about the plan, the easiness she displayed in talking about killing two people.  
She broke the silence, while toying with a black bag in her hands “Yes, I know I promised to kill your husband. And I will do it. What I forgot to say is that I am going to kill you as well” she smiled, while Beth started sobbing and pathetically shaking her head.  
Rose got up and started pacing through the room “Your husband comes back home and beats you up -pretty ordinary scenario considering the story of systematic abuse- but this time you snap and lose control, you shoot him and then overwhelmed by remorse and desperation you shoot yourself. Homicide-suicide by the book. Final touch, you use the same gun which killed the lawyer last night.” She shot at her a glance full of disappointment “You know, because of your sloppy job, my dear friend Emily is going to walk free soon, and as I learned once more the best way to get things done is doing them by yourself.”  
Beth’s sobs had become out of control, she was shaking frantically, trying to scream through the cloth, pleading mercy, cursing at Lily or just screaming, little she could understand and even less she could care. “I told you not to look at the cameras, not to be noticed, not to run away, and then I discover in prime time news that a lovely lady talkative and beautiful was noticed by several clients and by the receptionist entering the hotel, taking the room where Thompson was found dead and then running away. What the hell were you thinking, you idiot!” she got closer screaming, her face distorted in a grimace of rage.  
At that point the door clicked, Beth heard the sound of the keys being thrown on the carpet at the entrance followed by the thud of his working boots taken off and dropped on the floor “Beth! I’m home” her husband screamed.  
She had never been happier to have him back home. She heard him going toward the kitchen, the door of the fridge opening, the sound of the cap of the beer hopping into the sink “Beeth!” he shouted again.  
She looked around, Lily was at her shoulders hiding from him in a blind spot of the living room where he could not see her; she started shaking and crying in the desperate attempt of getting his attention and in some way preventing the unavoidable to happen. Finally he got close enough to see her wife tied up and in a mask of blood “Beth, what the hell?” he rushed to the room, got closer to untie her and froze at the sight of the woman behind the door.  
“Hi Bryan” Lily smiled getting closer to the man she had entertained so many times during the past months. His blood pumping fast through his veins so that she could actually see them swelling under his tattooed neck “I came by to thank you again for the brilliant installation of the cameras in my apartment and I found your lovely wife”  
He looked at her with empty eyes, not understanding how to formulate his thoughts, not having clear thoughts to formulate actually, after a few minutes the only word he could mumble was “Emily..”  
Beth who was already taken aback by the fact that Lily and her husband knew each other, opened her eyes wide when she heard her called by that name. A wave of rage and confusion arising, too many pieces of the puzzle and too scattered to be able to get the real picture, but one sure certain awareness, she’d been framed and according to her husband’s expression, he had as well.  
Bryan paced toward Lily with his hands up, probably just in the attempt to talk, when a rumbling noise and the sudden smell of sulfur blocked his movements. He grabbed his stomach and fell on the floor agonizing and spitting rills of blood.  
Lily returned to sit at the coffee table “Ok, I’ll tell you once, just to be clear. My name is not Lily, and for god sake not even Emily. I am Rose” then she shot Bryan in the head. She turned to her other puppet, coming closer to Beth she whispered “I’d love to explain to you how perfect my plan was, how much time and effort I spent in finding each one of you, pieces of my perfect machine… But you wouldn’t understand anyway. So good night sweetheart”   
For the last time Beth saw her blue eyes and the blonde locks, the face of an angel. An angel of death. Then she heard the metallic sound of the trigger.   
It was three o’clock and in the street everyone was busy with their own routine, the loud noise of trucks passing by had probably covered the gunshots. Nobody paid attention to the woman leaving the apartment or to the door left open. Only half hour later Beth’s neighbor coming back home from work noticed the door left ajar and went to knock in order to check whether everything was fine, not receiving reply she ventured inside. Few seconds later a high pitched scream filled the air.


	9. Far from over

It was only three in the afternoon when someone finally entered the interrogation room where Emily had been waiting for almost nine hours.  
“Good afternoon Agent Prentiss, sorry for keeping you waiting for so long” Parker approached.  
Emily didn’t display any reaction to his introduction, just bowed her head on one side and kept on staring at him in silence.  
“So what can you tell me about Doug Thompson?” Parker finally asked, slightly taken aback by her calmness.   
“Apart from the fact that he’s dead, which I apprehended from you this morning, not much. He was a lawyer, defending a man charged with multiple homicide and rape. I was called in during the process, gave my statement and after that I haven’t seen or heard from him anymore” she answered inperturbed.  
“But last night you sent him a message with your cell phone, asking him to meet at the Days Inn to discuss information about his client” he handed over her the transcription of the text message.  
As a lightning Emily recalled the text she received when she was at Reid’s, the one she thought was sent to her by mistake. It was signed D.T., Doug Thompson. Again she had a glimpse of the rose sitting on her piano, her phone was in the living room, someone could have entered, sent the text and left the rose “I didn’t write any message to him, I don’t even have his phone number” she answered using all her compartmentalizing skills not to let out any emotion that could betray her.  
Behind the glass Derek frowned noticing a bit of uncertainty before her answer.  
“So are you suggesting that the text wrote itself?” Parker tried to mock her in order to make her snap but the result he obtained was the exact opposite.  
“No, I am suggesting that anyone could have taken my phone in a moment of distraction and send the text.” She took a breath studying the detective, then she started tracing rhythmic circles on the surface of the desk with the tip of her forefinger “Have you got any consistent evidence against me, detective? Any proof unequivocally placing me on the murder scene, which I suppose to be this Days Inn Hotel? Any print? Any witness?”  
“We have security cameras and people who saw you at the scene of the murder last night. We are processing the videos and questioning the witnesses” he answered, his confidence slowly fading.  
“Did they recognize me? Out of doubt?” she went on questioning with a calm but sharp demeanor.  
“What is she doing?” Derek asked behind the glass “And what is he doing? He’s letting her carry the interrogation”  
“Emily is a tough cookie to handle and definitely she’s got something on her mind” Rossi commented.  
“You see” Emily went on “the fact is that I have witnesses too. Roughly thirty people, as a matter of fact”  
The three profilers on the other side of the glass froze.  
“Thirty people” she went on sternly “who can tell you how I spent the evening from eleven until two at an Italian restaurant called ‘The Treat’, drinking soda and playing the piano. The pianist, Eddie Lemont, and the owner of the place both know me and will confirm you my alibi”  
“Agent Prentiss, if you had an alibi why didn’t you tell before?” it was the only question Parker could come up with, being this one the latest scenario he could imagine to face.  
Because my boyfriend, friend and colleague who is now surely fuming at the other side of the glass will never forgive me for lying and ditching him in order to go and play the piano among strangers instead of spending the night with him as promised. This the answer which passed through her mind. “Because you didn’t bother asking me and then you let me sit here for nine hours” she answered still keeping her mask in place.  
Parker got up confused and closed the thin file he had been looking at during the interrogation “I.. of course I will have to check your alibi before doing anything” he mumbled disoriented.  
Emily beckoned with a tense smile and turned her eyes away from him as a sign that their conversation was over. For a minute she stared at the window knowing, hoping, that the man standing behind it could still find the patience and the will to believe her, but frankly not having much confidence in that.

“Agent Hotchner, I believe we agreed on a mutual exchange of information” Detective Parker lamented once out of the interrogation room.  
“Detective, don’t blame on me the fact that so far you’ve been handling this investigation in a slow and ineffective way.” Hotch turned to the detective, his cold tone making his words even sharper “You were not able to answer any of Agent Prentiss’ questions about the reason why she’s been kept in interrogation room the all day with hardly any proof of her involvement in this case. You don’t have a motive, you don’t have results from prints, you don’t have reliable witnesses and you didn’t even check your suspect’s alibi. I am not responsible for my agents on their free time and it’s not up to me to brief you with information I don’t have and that you should have gathered since the beginning. I have been condescending so far because this is your investigation but I have to warn you, my patience is wearing off.”  
Detective Parker swallowed hard trying to think of a reasonable answer when Garcia rushed into the room screaming in triumph, a chubby young man, likely the technician sent by the police department, was following rather intimidated by her enthusiasm.  
“It’s not her! It’s not her! Sir, the woman who entered the hotel introducing herself as Emily Prentiss is not our Emily” she chirped waving a file in front of Hotch’s face “We were able to ID her from the picture, her name is Beth Vernon, 35, married to Bryan Vernon. She was arrested for drug abuse years ago and then she cleaned herself up, kind of. Over the last few years she took several trips to the hospital with multiple injuries and the police was called over by the neighbors more than once, but apparently she never filed a formal complaint against her husband and he always got away with the regular abuse”  
“Garcia, good job.” Hotch replied without loosing his composure, just a feeble smile arching his lips “I appreciate the detailed report but as I said before you should hand this information over to Detective Parker, hoping he can use it wisely this time” behind him both Rossi and Morgan sighed in relief.  
“Garcia, were you able to find any connection between this Beth Vernon and Thompson or between her and Emily?” Rossi asked.  
“Nada sir” Garcia replied not sure whether to address him or Parker first.  
“Do you have an address?” finally Parker showed a bit of initiative.  
“Yes” Reid answered this time, while entering the room “But here the plot thickens. Apparently the cops are already there, they’ve been called about an hour ago. They found Beth and her husband both dead, apparently a homicide-suicide. The gun she used is the same caliber of the one used to kill Thompson. We’ll know more after the ballistic runs some tests.”  
Parker looked at Reid not certain whether to be relieved or even more upset, this investigation was turning into a hornet nest and he couldn’t wrap his head around it anymore. He sighed deeply dropping the file he had in his hands and replacing it with the one Garcia had at first given to Hotch, then he motioned to the door and before entering the interrogation room he addressed the Unit Chief “Wanna join me for delivering the good news?”

Emily straightened a bit when she saw Hotch coming in with Parker, not sure whether this meant good or bad news.  
Parker took the lead “Agent Prentiss, have you ever seen this woman before?” he asked lying on the table the snapshot of Beth Vernon that Garcia extracted from the video and the police record picture.  
“No. Aside from the obvious resemblance it doesn’t ring any bell. I don’t think I’ve ever met her. Can I ask you why?” her eyes shifted from Parker to Hotch and again to Parker.  
“Does the name Beth Vernon sound familiar to you?” Parker inquired without answering her question, though his tone was sober almost gentle.  
“No. I’ve never heard it”  
“Bryan Vernon?”  
“No” she shook her head starting to get confused “Can I know why you’re asking me these questions?”  
Before he could answer Morgan entered the room handing a file over to Hotch and Parker “Hei, you’ve got to see this” he said in a hoarse voice, then he stared at her, in his eyes not rage or resent just the sheer pain of who extended a hand in help and got scratched in return, the pain of betrayal. In that moment nothing could have been more excruciating to her than that glance and knowing how much she had hurt him.  
“Ehm, Agent Prentiss” Parker recalled her attention and it took her a huge effort to regain composure and bit back the tears “Apparently Beth Vernon, the woman in the photo I showed to you before, was positively identified as the woman who entered the hotel last night and introduced herself as Emily Prentiss. Also her prints were found on the crime scene, moreover…”  
“Did you find her?” Emily asked before Parker could finish.  
It was Hotch who answered her question “She’s dead. She killed her husband and then she committed suicide, this afternoon”  
“Do you know why she killed Thompson?” she went on inquiring.  
“So far we haven’t found any connection between the two of them” Hotch answered again starting to get suspicious about her pressing questions.  
Parker was astonished by the fact that she didn’t mind the obvious, the charges against her were dropped “Agent Prentiss, you do understand you’re free to go? It’s over”  
Emily got up from her seat, her voice trembling with indignation “Detective Parker, I understand that a perfect stranger pretended to be me and killed a man who wasn’t a saint but for sure didn’t deserve to die; in the process she managed to get a copy of my ID and to access my phone. Then, when you were close to get her and to understand her motive, she conveniently killed herself. To me this is nothing like over” Parker was left speechless and her colleagues perplexed and worried at her stern reaction. Then she turned to the team, careful not to cross Morgan’s eyes and to keep a distance from everybody, afraid that the slightest gesture of kindness or affection would make the barrel flood and the turmoil of emotion she’d being hiding break out “Thank you all for believing my innocence”  
“Prentiss” Hotch addressed her “a word in my office please”  
“I understand you had a very hard day, but someone took a long time and a great effort to plan this out in the attempt to frame you for murder. Do you have any idea on who could hold such a grudge against you?” he kindly addressed her once in the privacy of his office, Emily grateful of not having so many eyes studying her anymore.  
“Apart from Rose Lawson, who I believe you’ve thought about too, no I don’t have any idea”  
“And you think it might be her?” Hotch scrutinized her face.  
“I don’t have anything substantial to prove it” she didn’t lie, strictly speaking.  
“Prentiss, I didn’t ask you if you can prove it….” He looked at her with his sear expression, then he hesitated and something cracked in his mask “I know well how it feels to be haunted, to know that someone is after you and has a plan that is out of your control, a plan that you can’t even imagine and what you can do is just seat and wait for his next move. I know how much does it cost to ask for help when you don’t even know for what, how you want to take those feelings of impotence and vulnerability and stash them in a corner. I tried it, and I turned into a lone fighter, I lost Hailey, I almost lost Jack and for a while I thought I lost myself too. What I want to say I guess is just, when it comes the time remember that we stand by you”  
Emily couldn’t voice her feelings to that speech, her eyes wet and her breath short, a feeble “Thank you” was the only answer her trembling voice could handle. She couldn’t find words to express how much she appreciated the support she had just received, because she knew how hard for him was to rake those memories over, how he refrained to share his personal demons and especially his frailties with the team. The man who was standing in front of her now, uncovering an open wound in order to help her, was not her chief, nor a colleague, but a precious friend and she knew that he as well as the rest of the team would have been willing to put themselves on the line in order to help her. For this reason, for the affection she had for all of them she couldn’t allow them to know too much. Not for now at least. She put herself together again and answered “I really don’t know if it’s her, Hotch. I am really tired, I just want a shower and some sleep. It’s been a tough day…”  
“Of course, have some rest and we’ll talk again tomorrow” he replied back, though not entirely convinced she told him everything she knew.  
She left the bullpen fast and silent, hoping not to meet anyone else on her way, hoping to figure out what was Rose’s plan before anyone of her friends got hurt,  
hoping not to crash and to be strong enough to fight her before losing everything.


End file.
